Edie Freedman's Blog

Cape Ann artist and O'Reilly branding maven Edie Freedman shares her thoughts on random absurdities, happy accidents, and living a creative life that includes everything from shooting photographs and collecting sand dollars at the beach in the middle of winter to finding out what happens to oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough when you add the eggs last (do not try this at home).

Friday, September 2, 2011

As the White House dithers around Mr. Obama’s jobs speech next Thursday (after a ridiculous back-and-forth with John Boehner about the scheduling), I find myself wondering why the administration is acting like a loser who keeps dating jerks.

So I turned to the bestselling book He’s Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, and found dead-on descriptions of what the President has experienced with the Republicans in Congress, along with some very good advice:

It’s quite clear that the Republicans are just not that into you, Mr. Obama. If they were, they’d be trying harder:

"A man who wants to make a relationship work will move mountains to keep the woman he loves."

And yet you keep trying.

"We're taught that in life, we should try to look on the bright side. Not in this case. In this case, assume rejection first. Assume you're the rule, not the exception. It's liberating.”

You act as if the Republicans are as good as their word, and you don’t call them on it publicly when they don’t follow through on their promises of true bipartisanship.

"We have become a sloppy bunch of people. We say things we don't mean. We make promises we don't keep. "I'll call you." "Let's get together." We know we won't. On the Human Interaction Stock Exchange, our words have lost almost all their value. And the spiral continues, as we now don't even expect people to keep their word; in fact we might even be embarrassed to point out to the dirty liar that they never did what they said they'd do. So if a guy you're dating doesn't call when he says he's going to, why should that be such a big deal? Because you should be dating a man who's at least as good as his word."

Remember when you were meeting with John Boehner about the big budget initiative—until Mr. Boehner walked out and refused to take your phone calls?

"There's nothing worse, in dating terms, nothing worse, than that sick feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when it looks like the guy you were seeing or getting to know has decided to bail on you instead of talking to you about it. Nothing worse."

"Don't ask yourself what you did wrong or how you could have done it differently. Don't waste your valuable heart and mind trying to figure out why he did what he did. Or thinking back on all the things he said, and wondering what was the truth and what was the lie.”

In the end, maybe this is where you will find yourself:

“Every movie we see, Every story we're told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe... it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is... just... moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope."

Not good enough, sir. The country needs far more than that. I am hoping that you come out swinging, with a hugely audacious plan you believe in and evangelize everywhere, every day. A plan to put tens of thousands of people back to work, rebuilding our infrastructure and renovating school buildings, making them safer, more energy-efficient, and better places for our kids to learn. And that, rather than cutting spending for programs that truly do make a difference, you go after more revenue from those who have exploited the system for their own profit.

"It's very tempting when you really want to be with someone to settle for much, much less — even a vague pathetic facsimile of less — than you would have ever imagined. Remember always what you set out to get and please don't settle for less.”

Let the Republicans hoist themselves on their own petard, as they rally around the billionaires and the bankers—the supposed job-creators who, in spite of tax cuts and loopholes, have yet to create the jobs Americans so badly want and need.

It’s past time to keep playing their game, Mr. President, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The bottom line is this: they’re just not that into you. Kick ‘em to the curb and reach for your ideals. Stand up for yourself. Stand up for us.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

I've received a few online messages in the past few days from well-meaning friends passing on information they got online, either via Facebook or email. In both cases, the information was either completely false or mostly so. One was a fake Amber alert – and everyone, bless their hearts, wants to help find kidnapped children. Unfortunately, few people stopped to check it out on the Amber alert website [http://www.amberalert.gov/] or on one of the other websites [http://www.snopes.com/] that tries to verify email and internet rumors. That anyone would create a fake Amber alert is unthinkable; that we have to verify urgent Amber alerts is just sad.

In this era of intense national politics, I’ve been disappointed to see how many people on all sides of the various arguments are just repeating what they’ve heard about the details of proposed legislation, what some politician has avowed or disavowed, or where the president was born and what his religious affiliation really is.

Information comes at us from a seemingly infinite range of sources, online and off. Some people trust Fox News, some trust talk radio, others trust the NY Times and NPR, and still others look to Jon Stewart. We whack each other over the head with whatever we’ve decided to believe, wielding “the truth” like a weapon. When those ”truths” collide—as they so often do--there’s no winning, and no clear way forward to sort it all out. People don’t want to take the time to find out for themselves. It’s all too easy to be exposed to misinformation, and way too hard to get the unvarnished facts. And even when people on opposite sides of an issue look at the same data, their interpretations of it can vary widely.

So the question is: what to do? I try to do some research on political issues on my own, looking at data from the Congressional Budget Office and tracking down truths/half-truths/pants-on-fire lies at Politifact online. But in the end, there's just too much information, too much to read, assess, interpret, and digest. Way too much.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Democracy doesn’t work absolutely. That is to say: democracy requires compromise, not absolutes. Rigid adherence to economic theology—on all sides of this debate—is not representative government. Millions of people live in this country, and we don’t all agree on how things (anything, really) should be done. But we all live here together, and so we need to get along, negotiate compromises, and get to solutions that meet at least some of each side’s goals.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about governing, it’s about politics, money, and power. It’s about making it impossible for Mr. Obama to succeed at anything, so the GOP can claim the White House in 2012. And if they do, then what? Lead in our water, health insurance premiums through the roof, the super-rich getting super-richer?

Since 2008, the Republicans have been far more invested in seeing Mr. Obama fail than in seeing the country succeed. Their cynicism is overt, with their talk of how this debt ceiling debate is hurting the “Republican brand” and stating publicly (from the start of his presidency) that their main goal is ensuring that Mr. Obama is a one-term president.

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I continue to be amazed that the people who are most likely to suffer at the hands of the robber barons are the people who most enthusiastically support them.